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Wednesday, 06 July 2011

Photography on the News

No, not in the news, on the news...the evening news, that would be. The evening television news is apparently (whether out of laziness or an attempt to be hip, I can't tell) leaning ever more heavily of late on the sort of internet flotsam that makes the web such a timesink. I happened to switch from "ABC World News Tonight" to "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams" last night, and ABC was running a teaser for an upcoming segment with the seagull security camera thief that I linked to* a couple of days ago. (I can't find a robust link for the segment, but it covers additional incidents as well, including the one below. You'll have to search for it on their website if you want to see it.)

NBC, meanwhile, did its own little "fun" feature on this viral meme proving that even a monkey can be a photographer (which at least a dozen people have sent to me, so no hat tip). (There's a little more detail and some additional still here.) Poor crested black macaque might be getting its 15 minutes of fame just prior to its own extinction, but as far as I'm concerned this is absolutely one of the best self-portraits ever in the history of photography.

Mike

UPDATE: Chris Cheesman at Amateur Photographertalked to David Slater, who says that some of the news reports about the crested black macaque pictures have been exaggerated. (Note however that even Amateur Photographer couldn't resist a bad pun in its title.) Thanks to Rex Kersley for passing this along.

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Featured Comment by Tom Swoboda: "I keep telling people that one doesn't have to be very intelligent to be a photographer."

Featured Comment by ed g.: "So, does the monkey own the copyright? Will he hire Maisel's lawyer?"

Mike replies:It's a complicated case, but probably qualifies as a co-authored work. The monkey doesn't look like the litigious sort to me. :-)

Featured Comment by Bill Rogers: "Hey! That's my uncle!"

Featured Comment by Mani Sitaraman: "Why all the disrespect? The photographer, C.B. MacAque, clearly has more talent than many photographers. We may be having more fun with this than a barrel of humans has any right to...."

I'm very skeptical about the self-portrait. The focus is clearly on the eyes and the nose, which is in the center of the frame, is already out of focus. Did the monkey focus on his eyes and then recompose?

Sure, the focus could have been set exactly like that by coincidence. Or the active focus point wasn't the center one but one that was on the eyes, also by coincidence. Or...

I don't like that the photo that you've used and that many other sites have used is an obviously cropped and rotated version of the original which is shown at the Daily Mail link you provided. Firstly, I prefer the diagonal composition of the original, but more importantly, I think the straightened photo slightly mischaracterizes the macaque's photo skills (unless he knows Photoshop too).